biology

The Moral Animal

The Moral Animal is a biology topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand The Moral Animal rather than just read about it. In short: The Moral Animal is a 1994 book by journalist Robert Wright, in which the author explores many aspects of everyday life through evolutionary biology. Summary Wright explores many aspects of everyday life through evolutionary biology.

Key takeaways

The Moral Animal belongs to biology; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect The Moral Animal to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of The Moral Animal from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

The Moral Animal is a 1994 book by journalist Robert Wright, in which the author explores many aspects of everyday life through evolutionary biology.

Summary

Wright explores many aspects of everyday life through evolutionary biology. He provides Darwinian explanations for human behavior and psychology, social dynamics and structures, as well as people's relationships with lovers, friends, and family. Wright borrows extensively from Charles Darwin's better-known publications, including On the Origin of Species (1859), but also from his chronicles and personal writings, illustrating behavioral principles with Darwin's own biographical examples.

Reception The Moral Animal was a national bestseller and has been published in 12 languages; The New York Times Book Review chose it as one of its eleven Best Books of 1994. The linguist Steven Pinker praised The Moral Animal as a "fiercely intelligent, beautifully written and engrossingly original book" but "found his [Wright's] larger ethical arguments problematic." Neurologist Amy Wax wrote: "One measure of his [Wright's] success is that most of the incoherences in the book can be traced to weaknesses in the body of work he seeks to present, and not in Wright's exposition." The paleontologist Stephen Jay Gould wrote that The Moral Animal presents "pure guesswork" as science, and that the book owes its impact to "good writing and egregiously simplistic argument."

See also Evolutionary ethics Evolutionary psychology John Stuart Mill Kin selection Reciprocal altruism Richard Dawkins Steven Pinker The Naked Ape

References

Bibliographical information Robert Wright (1995). The Moral Animal: Why We Are, the Way We Are: The New Science of Evolutionary Psychology. Vintage. ISBN 978-0-679-76399-4.

External links Booknotes interview with Wright on Moral Animal, January 8, 1995.

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with The Moral Animal

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what The Moral Animal claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In biology, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to The Moral Animal before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about The Moral Animal ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of The Moral Animal

In research: The Moral Animal appears in biology research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses The Moral Animal in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: The Moral Animal is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1994 English-language non-fiction books, 1994 non-fiction books, Biology book stubs, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for The Moral Animal outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study The Moral Animal in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what The Moral Animal means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain The Moral Animal out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is The Moral Animal in simple terms?

The Moral Animal is a 1994 book by journalist Robert Wright, in which the author explores many aspects of everyday life through evolutionary biology. Summary Wright explores many aspects of everyday life through evolutionary biology.

Why does The Moral Animal matter?

Because it connects several biology ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study The Moral Animal?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on The Moral Animal.